Warlocks gambit an urban.., p.1
Warlock's Gambit: An Urban Fantasy LitRPG Adventure, page 1
Warlock’s Gambit
The Hidden World, Book 1
WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
The Hidden World, Book 1
Peter John
COPYRIGHT
Warlock’s Gambit, Book 1 of the Hidden World series, is published by Blooming Bull. Copyright © 2025 Peter John.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact bull@blooming-bull.com.
First Edition
Version 1.00
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
An ancient relic.
A master thief.
And a world hidden behind a veil few can pierce.
Trevor Cross thought he had the perfect score lined up: infiltrate a Buddhist temple, steal a 2,500-year-old tooth relic, collect two million dollars, and disappear. Simple. Clean. Professional.
He never expected the relic to fight back.
A single touch of the artifact shatters Trevor’s mundane life and awakens him to the Hidden World, a world where reality operates by rules he never imagined. Gifted with supernatural abilities and thrust into an ancient war between dimensions, Trevor discovers that his ‘simple theft’ has made him the last hope for preventing cosmic catastrophe.
The start of an exciting real-world, urban fantasy LitRPG!
From the neon-lit streets of Singapore to sacred temples hidden in impossible dimensions, Trevor’s journey will take him from small-time criminal to guardian of existence itself. But in a universe where martial arts blend with reality and where every choice reshapes the cosmic order, can a reformed thief learn to protect what he once would have stolen?
The boundaries between worlds are breaking.
The old guardians have fallen.
And Trevor Cross, reluctant hero, dimensional warlock,
and the universe’s most unlikely savior, is running out of time to figure out what he’s really fighting for.
Perfect for fans of the Dresden Files, Cradle, and He Who Fights With Monsters. A LitRPG adventure where character progression meets cosmic stakes, and where sometimes the best way to save the multiverse is to remember that you’re still human when it matters most.
Start reading the epic real world LitRPG to find out where Trevor’s adventures take him!
PRAISE FOR PETER JOHN’S OTHER WORKS:
“This was an interesting and probably one of the oddest books I have read to date in the LitRPG genre.” —Spencer Kirk on Genesis (Abduction Chronicles Series).
“… a great read, that truly follows a thought-provoking in depth storyline…” —MKrugel on Arena (Abduction Chronicles Series).
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading the Hidden World Series. This is an indie-published book. Even though care has been given to the review and editing of this novel, some mistakes may have slipped through. If you spot any grammatical errors or typos, please get in touch with me via email.
This book also contains game-like elements. They are generally unintrusive and integrated into the story, but beware, they exist. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy Trevor’s story.
Enjoy!
Peter John
Amazon Author Page | e-mail | Facebook | BookTok
CONTENTS
WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
COPYRIGHT
WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: THE TOOTH
CHAPTER 2: MOUNTAIN SHADOWS
CHAPTER 3: THE TEMPLE OF HOLLOW LIGHT
CHAPTER 4: CHAMBER OF RESONANCE
CHAPTER 5: TEMPLE UNDER SIEGE
CHAPTER 6: CRASH COURSE TRAINING
CHAPTER 7: FLIGHT FROM THE TEMPLE
CHAPTER 8: HONG KONG
CHAPTER 9: JOURNEY TO THE FIRST SITE
CHAPTER 10: MOUNT KAILASH
CHAPTER 11: FAE REALM
CHAPTER 12: DEVOURER OF DEVOTION
CHAPTER 13: PURSUIT
CHAPTER 14: THE DRAGON’S PATH
CHAPTER 15: THE ROAD TO WUDANG
CHAPTER 16: WHISPERS IN THE MIST
CHAPTER 17: THE WEIGHT OF TRUTH
CHAPTER 18: CONVERGENCE AT THE PEAK
CHAPTER 19: RECOVERY AND REVELATION
CHAPTER 20: ARRIVAL AT BOROBUDUR
CHAPTER 21: THE DIMENSIONAL BREACH
CHAPTER 22: THE WARLOCK’S GAMBIT
CHAPTER 23: STRANGE SOIL
CHAPTER 24: LESSONS IN SAVAGERY
CHAPTER 25: THE GATHERING STORM
CHAPTER 26: THE COURTS OF STARS
TREVOR AT THE END OF BOOK 1
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
AFTERWORD
THE SYSTEM OF THE HIDDEN WORLD
CHAPTER 1: THE TOOTH
Trevor Cross pressed his body against the wall, feeling the cool surface of ancient stone through his black tactical gear. The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum in Singapore’s Chinatown district buzzed with the steady hum of the climate control system, a constant, almost meditative drone that had kept him company for the past hour. Sweat trickled down his spine despite the cool air. He wasn’t nervous; he’d done this dozens of times before. But something about this job felt different.
Focus. In and out. Just like any other acquisition.
Three floors up, past layers of security, waited one of Buddhism’s most sacred relics: a tooth said to belong to Siddhartha Gautama himself. Trevor didn’t care about its spiritual significance. Instead, he cared about the two million dollars his anonymous client was willing to pay for it.
He checked his watch: 2:15 AM. The security guards would complete their rounds on this floor in approximately five minutes. That gave him a narrow window to disable the final security measures and access the chamber housing the relic.
Trevor slipped a small device from his pocket and pressed it against the electronic lock of the maintenance door. The device cycled through thousands of code combinations in seconds before finding the match. A soft beep signaled success, and the door yielded to his gentle push.
Inside, he moved with practiced efficiency toward the service panel that controlled the security system for the third floor. His fingers danced across the keyboard of his specialized tablet, entering commands that would create a loop in the security feed, showing empty hallways to any watching eyes while he made his way to the relic chamber.
“Child’s play,” he whispered to himself. Most religious institutions relied too heavily on the psychological deterrent of stealing sacred objects. The physical security, while better than average, was nothing compared to the major museums he’d infiltrated in the past.
Five minutes later, Trevor stood before an ornate door inlaid with gold and precious stones. Beyond it lay the sacred tooth, housed in a series of nested caskets made of gold and precious gems. The final barrier was both technological and old-fashioned: a modern alarm system coupled with a traditional lock.
Trevor dealt with the alarm first, attaching a small bypass module to the control panel. For the lock, he used a set of picks designed specifically for the task. The tumblers yielded to his touch with satisfying clicks. As the door swung open, Trevor caught his breath. The inner chamber glowed with soft golden light, illuminating a massive golden stupa. At its center, visible through a transparent section, was a smaller golden casket that housed the sacred tooth.
“Sorry, Buddha,” Trevor murmured, “but someone wants your dental work more than you do right now.”
He approached the display, scanning for pressure plates and motion sensors. Finding none, he withdrew a specialized glass cutter from his belt. With swift, precise movements, he cut a circle in the glass large enough to reach through.
The moment his glass cutter completed the circle, a high-pitched alarm shattered the silence.
“Shit!” Trevor hissed, quickly reaching through the hole to grab the small golden casket. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, about as big as a deck of cards.
The distant sound of shouting reached his ears as he secured the relic in a padded pouch on his belt. He’d planned for this contingency. There was always a chance that things would go sideways, but he hadn’t expected the temple to have an alarm connected directly to what sounded like an entire security team. Trevor sprinted back toward the hallway, abandoning stealth for speed. The voices grew louder, accompanied by the sound of running footsteps. As he rounded a corner, he caught sight of his pursuers… and froze for a split second.
These weren’t ordinary security guards. The six men racing toward him wore the maroon robes of Buddhist monks, but they moved with the coordinated precision of military operators. And most alarmingly, they carried what looked like modern assault rifles.
“What the hell?” Trevor muttered, changing direction and sprinting down an adjacent corridor. “Since when do monks pack heat?”
He reached for the smoke grenade on his belt, pulling the pin and tossing it behind him without breaking stride. Thick gray smoke billowed through the corridor, obscu
Gunfire erupted behind him, bullets punching into the walls around him with frightening accuracy despite the smoke screen.
“Stop! Thief of sacred relics!” one of the monks shouted in accented English. “You don’t know what you’re taking!”
Trevor didn’t slow down; in fact, he accelerated. He’d heard similar warnings on other jobs. Those desperate attempts to appeal to a conscience he’d learned to silence years ago.
The window loomed ahead, still sealed, as expected, but it was nothing a little force couldn’t solve. He unholstered his specialized parachute jacket, which he was already wearing beneath his tactical gear for this very purpose.
More bullets zinged past, one grazing his arm with a sharp burn. Trevor barely registered the pain as he charged the window, turning at the last moment to crash through shoulder-first.
Glass shattered around him as he plummeted into open air, three stories above the concrete parking lot. Wind rushed past his ears, drowning out the shouts from above. His hand found the deployment cord for his parachute and yanked it hard.
With a fierce whoosh, compressed gas inflated the specialized chute designed for low-altitude jumps. The sudden jerk as it caught air nearly dislocated his shoulder, but it transformed his deadly fall into a controlled descent.
“Not today!” Trevor muttered. Grinning like a madman, he steered himself toward the far corner of the parking lot where his rental car waited. This had been too close, and his blood was up. Things shouldn’t have gone this wrong.
A small, yet deep, vibration startled him.
Strangely, it seemed to be originating from the relic. And stranger yet, there appeared to be a rhythm to the vibrations, a rhythm that quickly separated itself into words.
Analyzing Bearer…
Initializing—
Trevor shook his head in denial, resisting the alluring tug on his consciousness, and in response, the vibrations faded. Just nerves, he thought shakily. But the relic’s strange humming had not disappeared altogether.
Faint traces lingered, like unread notifications pulsing in his mind’s eye. It was as if the tooth was measuring him, weighing his larcenous soul against some hidden scale.
Trevor shoved the errant thoughts down. It was all in his head, of course, his imagination running wild, and although the analogies were not ones he’d ever drawn before, they seemed apt. Still, it could only be his imagination.
Artifacts were loot, only loot, and nothing else.
As his feet touched down on the asphalt, he could hear sirens in the distance, beyond the cacophony of the Temple alarm. Working quickly, he sliced through the parachute cords with a knife, bundled the material, and tossed it into a nearby dumpster. Then he sprinted to the nondescript sedan he’d rented under a false identity.
The engine roared to life, and Trevor peeled out of the parking lot, heading north toward Malaysia. His heart pounded against his ribs, adrenaline coursing through his system. He’d made it, but those weren’t ordinary monks. Something about this job was very different, and for the first time in years, Trevor felt genuinely unsettled.
✵ ✵ ✵
The drive to the Malaysian border took less than an hour. Trevor crossed at the Woodlands Checkpoint using one of his alternate passports. Canadian this time, and continued north. Only when he reached Johor Bahru did he pull over at a rest stop to properly examine the wound on his arm.
The bullet had grazed him, leaving a shallow furrow across his bicep. He cleaned it with supplies from his first aid kit and applied a pressure bandage. It wasn’t his first bullet wound, and it likely wouldn’t be his last.
With his injury tended to, Trevor turned his attention to the golden casket he’d stolen. The urge to open it tickled at his mind, but years of experience had taught him better. Never examine the merchandise. That was one of his cardinal rules. Clients often had reasons for wanting relics that went beyond mere collectors’ obsession, and the less he knew, the better.
Still, as he placed the casket back in its padded pouch, he could have sworn he felt it vibrate slightly against his fingers. Probably just his imagination, fueled by adrenaline and the strange nature of the theft.
Four hours later, Trevor boarded a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei using yet another identity. The golden casket, carefully packed in a specially designed hidden compartment in his carry-on luggage, passed through security without triggering any alarms.
As the plane climbed into the pre-dawn sky, Trevor allowed himself to relax slightly. He was putting distance between himself and the scene of the crime. By the time he reached Taiwan, the trail would be cold.
Or so he thought.
✵ ✵ ✵
The taxi from Taoyuan International Airport crawled through Taipei’s morning traffic. Trevor gazed out at the familiar skyline, a strange sense of comfort washing over him despite the circumstances. Taiwan had been his base of operations for nearly three years now. It was the longest he’d stayed in one place since leaving the United States a decade ago.
His cover as a dedicated martial arts student had proven perfect. Who would suspect a man who spent six hours a day practicing Tai Chi and Wing Chun of being an international thief specializing in religious artifacts? The rigorous training had practical benefits beyond maintaining his cover. It kept him in peak physical condition and honed his reflexes to a razor’s edge.
“Almost to Shilin,” the driver said in Mandarin, glancing at Trevor through the rearview mirror.
Trevor nodded, responding in the same language. “Xièxiè. I appreciate the quick route.”
The driver smiled, evidently pleased with his passenger’s command of the language. “You speak well for a foreigner. Here for business or pleasure?”
“A bit of both,” Trevor replied with the practiced ease of someone used to small talk with strangers. “I study martial arts here.”
“Ah, very good! Which style?”
“Tai Chi and Wing Chun, primarily.”
The driver nodded approvingly. “Excellent choices for balance of mind and body.” Trevor doubted the man knew anything about martial arts, but he was enjoying the mundane nature of the conversation after the past 48 hours of high stress he had experienced.
The taxi turned onto a less crowded street, picking up speed. Trevor’s attention drifted to the side mirror, where he noticed two black sedans that had been following them for the past several turns.
His instincts, honed by years of living on the edge, flared to life. He casually reached into his jacket pocket, fingers closing around the small handgun concealed there. He’d managed to acquire it through local connections shortly after establishing his residence in Taipei. It was insurance for situations exactly like this. The locker at the airport was well stocked for any contingency.
“Could you take the next right, please?” Trevor asked, keeping his voice casual. “I’d like to avoid the construction on the main road.”
The driver nodded and prepared to turn. As the taxi slowed for the corner, the black sedans accelerated, one pulling alongside while the other remained behind.
The crack of gunfire shattered the early morning calm. The driver jerked violently as bullets punched through the side window, striking him in the head and chest. Blood sprayed across the windshield as the man slumped forward, his foot reflexively jamming down on the accelerator.
Trevor ducked below the window line as more bullets tore through the taxi’s frame. The vehicle, now driverless, careened forward at increasing speed, the dead man’s foot locked in its final spasm.
“Damn it!” Trevor lunged forward between the seats, grabbing the steering wheel while staying as low as possible. The driver’s body blocked access to the pedals, so Trevor could only steer the accelerating vehicle as it raced through the streets of Taipei.
Bullets continued to ping off the taxi’s exterior as the pursuing vehicles maintained their attack. Trevor wrenched the wheel hard, sending the taxi into a tight turn that momentarily broke the line of fire. He felt his intercostal muscles scream in protest, making his breaths stab him with discomfort.
